Page 80 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

36 LOVE YOUR CUSTOMERS,
LOVE WHAT THEY LOVE

Getting close to the customers is a no-brainer. The better we
understand them, the better we can serve them and the more likely
they are to come back. However, most firms tend to think of “the
customer” as being someone very different from “the staff.”

Yet in many cases the people running the business have very similar
interests to the people who come to spend their money there. This
is especially true in retail—people working in clothes stores have
an interest in fashion, people working in music stores are usually
keen musicians, people who become chefs have an interest in good
food, and so forth. The question is, how do we turn our love of these
things into a love of the customers?

The idea

Tim Waterstone opened his first bookstore in 1982: he needed a job,
having just been fired by W. H. Smith. From the start he aimed to
share his own love of books. Customers were encouraged to browse,
to the extent that Waterstone provided seating so that people could
read the books for a while if they wanted to. There is nothing to stop
someone sitting all morning reading, but in practice few people
do this—they might read a few pages, or even a chapter, but (since
they are obviously book lovers) most of them buy the book to read
it at home. Staff are chosen for their love of books, and for their
knowledge of specific types of book—they are expected to be able to
talk to customers on an equal level.

Senior management appear on the corporate website almost hidden
behind their favorite books: each has made a list of the books that

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